Abstract: Diaries, photographs, and writings relating to Taiwanese military policy and to confidential relations between Taiwan and
the People's Republic of China.

Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives

Creator:
Wang, Sheng, 1917-

Access

The collection is open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.

Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.

Biographical Note

Wang Sheng (1917-2006) was a lieutenant general in the People's Republic of China army and director of the General Political
Warfare Department from 1975 to 1983.

Wang was born in Longnan County, Jiangxi Province.
In 1939 he joined the Kuomintang (KMT) and was sent to join the Three Principles of the People Youth Corps Training Course,
run by Chiang Ching-kuo.
After finishing the course, Wang was chosen to work for Chiang, which he did for the next fifty years, including taking care
of Chiang's twin sons.

In the early 1950s, Wang established the precursor to the General Political Warfare College, the elite training school for
the KMT army and party cadres.
Being second in command of the civil-military programs, welfare, and services section of Chiang Ching-kuo's cadre system,
Wang's main task was laying the foundation for the China Youth Corps under Chiang's leadership.
Wang thus spent most of the later 1950s and 1960s training army political cadres in the General Political Warfare College,
which allowed him to develop a mentoring relationship with rising officers throughout the armed forces.
In 1953, Wang was named assistant commandant (i.e., provost) and in January 1954 was made a major general.
In 1960, Wang became deputy director of the General Political Warfare Department at the Ministry of National Defense; in mid-1961
he was promoted to lieutenant general and became the executive deputy director.
He was promoted to director in April 1975, the same month in which Chiang Kai-shek died.
Wang served as director of the General Political Warfare Department of the Republic of China's Armed Forces until 1983, during
which time he became one of Chiang Ching-kuo's most trusted advisers, frequently undertaking
secret military and intelligence assignments on behalf of the Taiwanese government.

In 1979, Wang was assigned to lead a special unit within the KMT, the Liu Shaokang Office, aimed at dealing with Chinese Communist
peace overtures to Taiwan and Beijing's newly proposed united front.
This office was so powerful that it was described in Taiwan's political arena as the inner court of the KMT party headquarters,
and Wang's position was second only to that of President Chiang Ching-kuo.
In the early 1980s, as Chiang's health failed, Wang was invited by the US government to visit the United States and meet high
officials from the Reagan administration.
As Wang toured the United States, however, certain military-intelligence quarters in Washington, DC and mass media such as
Newsweek began describing him as Chiang's heir apparent.
In August 1983, Chiang sent Wang to Paraguay as Taiwan's ambassador; Wang did not return to Taiwan until Chiang's death in
January 1988. Wang died in Taipei in 2006.

Scope and Content of Collection

This collection contains fifty-one volumes of Wang Sheng's personal diaries, dating from the early 1950s to 2000, and twenty-four
volumes of official files, speeches, minutes, correspondence, and photographs.
They document Wang's unique position in Taiwan's political and military-intelligence arenas and reveal the secret role Taiwan
and the KMT played in the Cold War's East Asian theater.

Observation on National People's Congress Standing Committee's Draft Amendment to Constitution with Study on Solutions, Self-Criticism
on Oversea Communication by Chinese in Taiwan
and Suggestions on Preventing People from Smuggling into Mainland 對偽人大常委會通過偽憲法修改草案之初步觀察及應採取措施之研究，在台定居國人經由海外通信及潛往匪區狀況檢討及防制建議,
1982